A blog for the friends of Avalonia Land Conservancy, acquiring and protecting natural habitats in southeastern Connecticut

Monday, December 1, 2014

Pine Swamp Wildlife Corridor, Part 1

By Mike Goodwin

The Pine Swamp Wildlife Corridor (PSWC).

Avalonia Land Conservancy’s
largest preserve, Pine Swamp Wildlife Corridor (PSWC), is located in
the Gales Ferry section of Ledyard. Most of the property is a peat
swamp that is little changed since from Colonial times. PSWC has
beautiful ponds, a shrub covered power line right-of-way, morasses
and quicksands, glacial moraines, and open forests. The southern
portion of PSWC protects an important ground water recharge area
supplying the drinking water needs of local households.

Created by a glacier

The Wisconsin glacier covered all of
Connecticut and Long Island until about 13,000 years ago. As the
glacier receded it left a belt of huge boulders across what is now
PSWC from the NE to the SW known as the Ledyard Moraine. Some
boulders are thirty feet in diameter. They are piled up 3 and 4 deep
and form caves in which wildlife like fox and coyote make their home.
In Colonial times wolves and bears also lived there. The rocks are
covered with mosses and lichens and rock polypody ferns, some are
hundreds of years old. Best viewing of the moraine is from the
yellow and red trails.

In pre-Colonial times the swamp was
well known to the local Indians who called it Cuppacommock which
translates to a refuge, hiding place, or a close place or haven. It
was also called Ohomowauke meaning owls’ nest, owl-place, or a
resort of owls, (mhmmau-auke).

Known to ship-builders

Early colonist ship-builders, back
in the sixteen hundreds, depended on pine swamps for masts and spars
for their vessels. This pine swamp was known throughout the
Connecticut colony as “Mast Swamp.” Mast Swamp furnished spars
for more than a century. The last known pines were removed from the
swamp in 1820, the final ones having been cut to supply ships in the
Revolutionary War and War of 1812. Large pines have since regrown in
the swamp.